Final Programme

Special Exhibition
Travel, Transport, Terrorism
A notably popular feature at the European Congress
of Radiology is the special exhibition initiated and
compiled by Prof. Hermann Vogel from Hamburg,
Germany, in cooperation with the Deutsches
Röntgenmuseum, which has for years been part
of the annual meeting. Thus, ECR 2007 is glad
and proud that Prof. Vogel again presents his
fascinating findings and his very particular view of
imaging techniques.
This year’s exhibit is entitled ‘Travel, Transport,
Terrorism. X-Rays Serving Security.’ As Prof.
Vogel states in his accompanying text, travel and
transport can both be targets of terror attacks,
and they play important parts in their preparations.
Travel, transport and terrorism have become part of
our daily lives and elements of globalisation.
X-rays make hand luggage, parcels and containers
transparent. Everybody knows the airport examines
these items and that dangerous objects hidden
inside them will become visible. X-ray technology is
employed to impede terrorist attacks by searching
for weapons and explosives. If explosives are
suspected, then the controller will search for an
ignition device – the radiograph may show and
document details, which may indicate the culprit.
X-ray technology allows for the identification of
items which have induced suspicion, without opening
cases, baskets and containers. It also shows the
location and permits identification of objects hidden
about the person, without the need for personal
searches. Fire-arms can be recognised by their
form, size and absorption of x-rays, while explosives
and drugs are identified by dual energy imaging
and x-ray spectroscopy. Even people can be found,
hiding within the contents of a truck.
The exhibition shows how x-ray technology
can perform today and what the results are.
Conventional fluoroscopy with transmission images,
backscatter technique, dual energy technology,
computed tomography and spectroscopy are all
used. Images of the whole body, produced by a
scan with a pencil or fan beam, show the body
and its contents. Backscatter technology produces
images of the body without clothing that are
similar to photographs. One can foresee that
in the near future the different methods will be
employed in combination, not only successively,
80 European Society of Radiology